


In the fading of night

by bacchusofficial



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Bigfoot - Freeform, Camping, Fist Fights, Humor, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, well more like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:01:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13375857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bacchusofficial/pseuds/bacchusofficial
Summary: "Quiet, now," Kepler warned jovially. "You might wake her up."Despite knowing he was playing directly into Kepler's hands, Jacobi couldn't help his irritated outburst of, "Wakewhoup?"Kepler sat up straight so he looked extra dramatic with the fire casting shadows across his face. "Bigfoot."





	In the fading of night

**Author's Note:**

> alt. titled "dan and warren's bigfoot adventure."
> 
> no further explanation necessary or provided.

Compasses were useless. All they did was let you get lost more North. What was the point of that? Was it somehow more comforting to be lost in a familiar direction?

Speaking of being lost.

"Major," said Jacobi, kicking at a loose branch on the ground. "We're lost."

A couple yards ahead of him, carrying a small backpack and a rifle, Kepler flashed a dangerous smile over his shoulder. It amazed Jacobi how well he managed to look like he belonged in this place, this seemingly endless forest. It was something about his teeth, Jacobi thought, the way he bared them like a wild animal.

Or maybe it was the gun. Flip a coin.

"Of course we're not lost, Jacobi," said Kepler over his shoulder, without missing a step. Jacobi didn't know how he could do that without tripping. Jacobi had already tripped at least four times, and that was while he was focusing on where he stepped. Kepler held up a small circular device on a metal chain. "We've got a compass."

"What the hell is that supposed to fix—"

Kepler came to an abrupt stop, and Jacobi quickly changed tact.

"Sir," he said, politely, "I fail to see how a compass is going to solve our current predicament."

"What predicament?" Kepler started walking again.

"We're _lost_."

"Are not."

"Are too."

"Are  _not_."

Something snapped in the trees to their left; Kepler froze, signaled Jacobi to stop, held his rifle towards the noise.

Rustling.

Jacobi held his breath.

A little deer hopped out of the undergrowth, sniffing the earth. Jacobi sighed and relaxed, and Kepler, after a moment's pause, turned on the safety and let his gun fall back on its strap.

"Pretty thing," Kepler said, absently, though he seemed disappointed by something. He turned to Jacobi. "We'll stop here. Mind setting up the tent?"

Jacobi let the large bag on his back slide to the ground with a thump. For whatever reason, it would've been "impossible" for Kepler to carry more than his “personal supplies” while he was "manning their firepower," so Jacobi had been stuck with their supply bag.

"Of course I don't mind, sir,” said Jacobi with just the right amount of sincerity to block any anger from Kepler.

"Good boy," said Kepler, in passing, distracted by gathering wood from around the site. Jacobi wished he wouldn't do that, but he couldn't say anything about it because he was at least 90% sure Kepler didn't even realize he did it. It was just one of the marks he laid on Jacobi, a little reminder that  _I'm in charge, I own you_ , one so fundamental that Kepler didn't even realize he was doing it. "You do that, I'll start a fire."

"Right," said Jacobi, fishing their tent out of the supply bag. It was small and green. The picture on the bag advertised a flat, narrow affair that would sleep “two.” By “two,” Jacobi was fairly certain the company didn't mean “two grown men.”

Jacobi wrestled the tent components out of the bag, arranged them by type, and stared at them.

He made bombs, how hard could this be?

The answer: very hard. By the time he finagled the pieces into a shape resembling the one in the picture, Kepler already had a fire going, a pan hanging over it, and two stumps set up next to each other beside it. Kepler sat on one of them, watching Jacobi with poorly concealed amusement that made Jacobi boil on the inside.

"You could've helped," Jacobi pointed out.

Kepler shrugged. "Yes."

Jacobi brought himself down to a simmer and stomped over to plop himself on the other stump. It was warm outside, even without the fire. They were somewhere in the middle of August, Jacobi couldn't remember the exact day. He didn't worry about days, he just did whatever Kepler had planned.

Including, apparently, wandering around in the woods all day before setting up a cozy little camp for...

"Hey, sir?"

"Hm?" asked Kepler. He'd got up to stir whatever was in the pot. Probably Campbell's soup. They'd packed a lot of it. Kepler really liked Campbell's soup.

"What are we doing out here, again? Besides getting lost, of course."

"We aren't lost."

Jacobi took a deep breath, looked at the sky, and exhaled violently. "Fine, okay, if I agree to say we're not lost will you tell me why we've been stomping around the woods all day? And  _please_  don't tell me this is a bonding time camping trip, because the  _last time_ —"

"Oh, for the love of  _God_ , stop  _whining_ ," snapped Kepler, whirling on him, which meant his amusement with Jacobi's antics had reached its limit. "You've been at it all day now, Jacobi. I think it might be time to call the world records people, you could really cash in. Have you ever considered that, maybe, if you  _paid attention_  to things for once in your measly little existence instead of  _complaining_ , you could actually learn something useful to do with your time? Obviously not, if all you can do after thirty-four years on God's Green Earth is run your mouth and blow things up. You can't even pitch a simple tent. Of  _course_  you don't understand why we're, as you say, 'stomping around the woods all day.' Seems to me you barely even understand English— _how many times_  do I have to tell you we're not lost? As your commanding officer, that number _should_ equal exactly  _zero_ , because you ought to have complete faith in me, and, if you don't, you ought to at least have the survival instincts to  _act like you do._   _Now, are there any more questions, Mr. Jacobi_?"

The staccato of his last words jarred Jacobi right through to his teeth, hunched shoulders flinching with every word.

He took a shaky breath. "No, sir," he said, flat.

"Wonderful," said Kepler with all his teeth, and just like that his whole demeanor shifted back to normal, and he was taking two metal cups out of the supply bag and pouring the soup into each of them, presenting one to Jacobi with a plastic spoon.

Jacobi accepted it with a muttered "Thanks," and started eating, hoping that his own silence would spread to Kepler.

Nope.

"Jacobi, did I ever tell you about the time I escaped a town mob with nothing but one bullet?"

A long sigh.

"No, I don't think you have." Jacobi bit his tongue before he could add that it didn't sound like the kind of story he'd be interested in; Kepler was already talking, anyway.

"Well, there I was in a little family town in Arizona. Nice place, quiet. Not much happened there. I was about..." Kepler made a face for dramatic effect. "Oh, nineteen? Twenty? Anyway—"

Jacobi's ears perked up, and he looked at Kepler over his soup. This was new. Kepler didn't talk about his life before Goddard. Or, if he did, he blurred the lines so well that you could never be sure.

"—and I had this dog. German shepherd. Good dog, smart. Her name was Beatrice. I'd got her as a puppy. I loved that dog."

Jacobi couldn't imagine Kepler loving anything, but he kept that to himself.

"The thing about Beatrice was she liked to get into trouble. Nothing too serious, just dog stuff. Getting into the neighbor's chickens, pissing on people's shoes, you know. Obviously I'd trained her better, but she just. Did it anyway. Thought it was funny. I did too—kid stuff, huh? Before responsibility took hold of me.”

Again, not something Jacobi could imagine, but he nodded along anyway.

"Well, one day, Beatrice got into some real bad trouble. This punk who lived down the road from me had this idea he'd try and mess with her, and, well. Beatrice was a strong girl. Kid lost his hand." Kepler shrugged, like  _What can you do?_

"And it was a small town, so everyone knew what happened in a matter of minutes, and this kid—well, everyone loved him 'cause he had money. And there I was, poor, not particularly likable, and owner of the dog. And you know how small towns are, how they like to band together."

Jacobi didn't know, but he nodded, anyway.

"My pal Benny came and told me they were coming to get Beatrice, so I took her and I took my dad's—"

Dad? Kepler had a dad? Hadn't he risen fully formed from the tide?

"—pistol from by the door, and we ran up this hill at the edge of town, this hill that looked over this big lake. It was a damn good view. I still remember it, exactly where every tree was, and there was this big rock in the middle where snapping turtles liked to—"

Ugh, he was going on a tangent, now. Jacobi ate some soup while he waited.

"...until I could hear the townsfolk coming up the hill behind me, yelling and stomping and gnashing their teeth. And I had Beatrice sitting there next to me, looking at the lake. And I waited until I could see them, and they could see me, and I stood up and pointed my dad's gun at the back of Beatrice's head and—"

"No," whispered Jacobi, horrified. Kepler's mouth twisted into a sick kind of smile.

"I shot her right there, in front of the lake."

Jacobi stared in stunned silence. Kepler let him stay there for a long moment, let the story sink into his bones.

"Long story short?" said Kepler, casually eating a spoonful of soup. "That was the plot of Steinbeck's  _Of Mice and Men_."

Jacobi's mouth worked silently for several seconds. He rubbed his eyes. He sat down his soup. He said, "Excuse me?"

"Come on, Jacobi, read a book sometime. It's a classic."

"Did you just—Did you—"

"What?" asked Kepler, innocent. Jacobi put his head in his hands and groaned.

"Quiet, now," Kepler warned jovially. "You might wake her up."

Despite knowing he was playing directly into Kepler's hands, Jacobi couldn't help his irritated outburst of, "Wake  _who_  up?"

Kepler sat up straight so he looked extra dramatic with the fire casting shadows across his face. "Bigfoot," he said, drawing out each syllable. 

A beat, while Jacobi wondered how anyone could be so ridiculous and so dangerous at the same time. It shouldn't be allowed. Yet there Kepler sat, looking like he'd won something. 

"Fuck off," scoffed Jacobi, tearing his eyes away from Kepler's, because he didn't have to deal with this, he was a grown man, and there were only so many times he could be made a fool of in one day. 

Kepler said nothing. When Jacobi looked back, there was no hint of a joke on his face, no telltale glint in his iron eyes. 

"You're serious," Jacobi realized. 

"Deadly."

"Oh, come  _on_ —"

"According to Mr. Cutter, sightings in the Northern part of these woods have been staggeringly high this month, and he sent us to investigate."

"To investigate  _Bigfoot_."

A beat. Jacobi paled. Then Kepler laughed.

"No, of course not. Not Real Bigfoot, anyway." He collected their cups into a neat pile next to the pot, which he'd taken off the fire. "Goddard has some assets stored around here, and Cutter sent us to make sure whoever's messing around near them is... Discouraged from continuing their business here."

“There’s no way—“

The fire reflecting off Kepler's eyes made him look ethereal, like something that had just sauntered out of hell, and Jacobi stopped because his breath caught in his throat. That happened, sometimes. Kepler was always beautiful—in the sense that a complicated bomb was beautiful, constantly filling Jacobi with dread and awe and sometimes understanding—but every once in a while it would suddenly be too much to bear and Jacobi would feel hot all over and his mouth would dry up and he felt like he had to claw his skin off to feel normal again—

And then the feeling would disappear, without a trace, and Jacobi's breath would return in one quick inhale.

Kepler quirked an eyebrow. "Everything okay, Jacobi?" 

"Fine, sir," said Jacobi through gritted teeth. "Everything's just fine."

“Good,” said Kepler. From somewhere, he materialized a maglite, which he pressed into Jacobi’s confused hands. “Then you won’t mind walking the perimeter.” 

Jacobi blinked. “Um. Sir, what are _you_ going to do?” he asked, as tactfully as possible, because there was no way in Hell that he was going to walk around the woods at night alone while Kepler relaxed by the fire, laughing at his own jokes and Jacobi’s misfortune.

“Scared, Mr. Jacobi?” asked Kepler. He’d picked up the rifle and was inspecting it, probably just so he’d look cool. 

“No, I just—“

“Don’t you worry about me,” said Kepler, reaching into his coat pocket and thumbing a handful of bullets into the gun. “I’ll be just fine. You know who you should be worrying about?”

Jacobi pinched the bridge of his nose. “Bigfoot, sir?” he guessed, without enthusiasm.

Kepler winked at him, then, after consulting the compass around his neck, strode off North into the darkness of the woods. 

This couldn’t possibly be real. Surely Jacobi had suffered a brain injury in an explosion or something, and he was now in a coma, and when he woke up he’d be in a hospital with Kepler sitting there reading a newspaper and drinking whatever expensive booze he’d managed to smuggle in, and he’d see Jacobi looking at him and tell him to get off his ass and back to work—wait, no, this was _Jacobi’s_ fantasy, so actually, Kepler would see Jacobi open his eyes to the sun and he’d drop the newspaper and whiskey and rush to Jacobi’s side, and he’d brush the hair from Jacobi’s forehead and say, “God, I was so worried, Jaco—Daniel—I’m so glad you’re okay, don’t scare me like that again, oh I knew I should’ve listened to you, you’re the bomb expert, after all—“ Because obviously, the explosion had been Kepler’s fault and if he’d just let Jacobi—

_“Jacobi!”_

Jacobi jerked his head up and whirled around, maglite held at the ready. Though Kepler was yards away and mostly just a shadow at this point, his annoyance was still evident. 

_“Perimeter,”_ he growled. 

Right.

Jacobi stood, clicked on the maglite, and wandered off in a random direction, wondering what the point of walking the perimeter was. Couldn’t he just as well guard the camp by, you know, staying at the camp? 

The woods were different at night. Because it was dark? Maybe so. Jacobi wasn’t particularly superstitious, but he also wasn’t stupid. There were _things_ in the woods at night, things like predators, big cats, bears—things just waiting for prey to wander into their territory waving a bright white beacon around in front of them like a welcome light—

A twig snapped beneath his foot and Jacobi definitely didn’t jump, or shriek, or double over to catch his breath and let his heart rate return to normal. This was stupid. He’d killed people, for God’s sake, he’d been held at gunpoint, this shouldn’t be _scary_. Besides, they’d already covered at least three fourths of the woods that day, and they’d found nothing to suggest anything dangerous—wild animals, shady characters, Bigfoot—living there. A little darkness shouldn’t change that. 

Jacobi sighed, and decided he was far enough from camp to start circling the “perimeter.” He looked over his shoulder to get his bearings.

Great. Of course he couldn’t see the camp, anymore, despite the fire he’d left blazing there. 

Now, he had three options. Retrace his steps in the dark,yell for Kepler, or sit here and hope Kepler found him before anything dangerous did. Well, before anything that would kill Jacobi did. …Kepler wouldn’t kill him, right?

He sighed, and sat down next to an oak. Maybe compasses weren’t so stupid. He wouldn’t mind getting lost in a familiar direction, right now. It’d be nice, he lamented, to have a compass that got him lost more towards Warren Kepler. 

A few yards out, leaves rustled. Something made a sound like blowing a nose. Jacobi yanked the maglite toward the sound.

It was the little deer, from earlier. It stared at Jacobi with wide eyes, frozen in place. Jacobi had never been more relieved in his life. 

“Hey, buddy,” said Jacobi, gently. “Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. See? All I’ve got’s this light.” 

He shook the light. The deer sniffed. 

“You haven’t happened to see any Bigfoots around here, have you?” asked Jacobi. “Asking for a friend.”

The deer looked him up and down and slowly approached him. Now, Jacobi didn’t know much about deer, but he was pretty sure they weren’t prone to walking up to humans like that, and he was especially sure that their eyes didn’t whir and fixate on people, and that said eyes didn’t have tiny red lights inside them—

“Fuck,” said Jacobi, scrambling to his feet. “Fuck, fuck, fuck—“

Jacobi wasn’t a fighting person, he was a sneak-in-and-blow-them-up-person, and since that wasn’t an option right now, then, in this moment, he was a running person. His feet slammed through the leaves and undergrowth, his maglite’s beam casting sporadic, shifting shadows across his path and making him see great looming monsters between the trees he darted through, and maybe those were what distracted him enough to trip over a root and go flying through the air to land face-first on the ground.

The ground, which was. 

Metal?

Still reeling from his fall, Jacobi pressed his ear to the ground and knocked on it.

Definitely metal, and… hollow?

Groaning, Jacobi pushed himself up onto his hands and knees and cleared away the leaves on the ground, revealing a five-by-five-foot metal hatch which, upon further inspection, was raised about half a foot off the ground. Probably the thing he’d tripped over. He was trying to figure out where his maglite had flown off to so he could find out how to open the hatch when he heard footsteps behind him.

He turned around very slowly. 

Someone tall and shadowy loomed over him. It wasn’t Kepler. By now, it would be impossible for Jacobi to mistake anyone for Kepler, no matter how dark it was. Still, out of some vague hope, he asked, 

“…Kepler?”

And the figure leaned down over him, light from the stars glinting off the person’s eyes—but this wasn’t a person. This thing was covered in ragged fur and leaves and—

_No. Absolutely not._ Jacobi _refused_ to be murdered by Bigfoot. 

—and a huge clawed hand reached for Jacobi’s throat. 

Jacobi rolled out of the thing’s way, searching frantically for the maglite. The thing’s heavy boot came down on Jacobi’s stomach and he wheezed, clutching his gut, curling on his side as the thing kicked him again, again, and through the thumping pain Jacobi thought hysterically that at least now he knew it wasn’t Real Bigfoot, unless Bigfoot wore steel-toed boots.

Whatever, it didn’t matter if it was Bigfoot or not, if Jacobi was going to survive, he had to do _something_. His lungs were empty and pain wracked his ribs, but he tried to find the air to shout, and because he was a very stubborn person he eventually did. “Kep—“ he wheezed, then took a ragged breath and shouted, _“Kepler!”_

Bigfoot planted one foot on either side of Jacobi’s body and pushed both its hands over Jacobi’s mouth. Rolling onto his back, Jacobi thrashed in its grip, trying to pry its hands off his face, to wriggle out of the way. His shouts were muffled by the hands but occasionally he managed to free himself long enough for part of a word to echo through the woods. What a way to die, what a fucking—

Someone tackled Bigfoot, whose head hit the metal hatch with a jarring _clang_. Busy laying on his back and taking panicked breaths, Jacobi couldn’t see the fight, but he could hear the comic book _whacks_ and _thuds_ and _bangs_ it made, and the whirs and clicks—

Wait a minute.

Jacobi opened his eyes.

A small deer with wide glassy eyes looked down on him.

Jacobi sat up fast and grabbed the deer around its waist before it could run off. It was cold, and Jacobi felt gears shift beneath its skin, which he tried not to think about while he wrestled with it, stumbled to his feet, grabbed its neck, smashed it once, twice, three times against the nearest tree, until its little head was dented and its eyes no longer hummed, no longer saw anything.

He breathed heavily, let it go, and picked up the maglite laying conveniently beside his foot.

Kepler was crouched next to Bigfoot’s unconscious form, poking it with the butt of his rifle. In the bright LED, it was now obvious that the thing wasn’t Real Bigfoot, just some big guy in a suit made of grass and leaves and strips of cloth. 

“Good work, Jacobi,” said Kepler, “You found their hideout, and—looks like—destroyed their camera. Impressive.”

Jacobi said nothing. Kepler frowned, looking him up and down.

“…Everything okay?” he asked.

“I almost,” said Jacobi through gritted teeth, “Got murdered. By _Bigfoot_.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” said Kepler. “This is just one of Samford’s goons. Bigfoot’s not real—“

“ _Oh yeah?_ Well she just kicked my ass!” 

“You’re fine,” Kepler scoffed, waving him off. “Help me get this hatch open.”

It was a long night. Clearing out secret underground reconnaissance bases took time, especially when you weren’t allowed to use explosives (“Cutter needs a way to track these people down so we can destroy them.” “Well I don’t see why we can’t just take what we need and kablam.” “This is why I’m in charge of things, Jacobi.”). 

But, finally, things were set. They climbed out of the hatch, covered it up with a healthy layer of leaves (marking a nearby tree so Goddard would be able to find it when they came to Dispose of things), then debated what to do with “Bigfoot” until Kepler got tired of arguing, shot him in the head, and covered him up with leaves, too. 

When they made it back to camp, something annoyingly easy for Kepler to do, their fire was down to its last embers. In silence, they got their sleeping bags and crawled into the little tent Jacobi had spent so much time assembling. 

All Jacobi wanted to do was lay down and sleep forever (or at least for the couple of hours until dawn, when he knew Kepler would be waking him up so they could leave), but before he could unzip his sleeping bag, Kepler put a hand on his arm. 

Ignoring the way it seared his skin, Jacobi raised his eyebrows and waited. 

“How hurt are you?” Kepler asked.

“I’m fine,” said Jacobi, because he didn’t want to do this, this thing that they did where Kepler pretended to be concerned and Jacobi pretended it didn’t make him feel like he was going to die from all this warmth inside him—

“Take off your shirt,” Kepler ordered. 

“That’s awfully forward of you, sir.”

Kepler stared, unamused, until Jacobi grumbled and complied. His ribs were starting to bruise nicely—he’d started to feel them on the walk back to camp, a dull, sore ache—but other than that, he was fine. No blood, no broken bones. 

Kepler prodded a particularly nasty bruise high on Jacobi’s chest, and he breathed sharply, winced. Okay, maybe one or two broken bones. Jacobi tried to squirm away from Kepler’s touch, because he really, _really_ didn’t want to do this, but Kepler stilled him with long, rough fingers wrapping around his arm to keep him still, while his other hand kept poking the bruises, eyes furrowed in fascination. 

Every touch made something in Jacobi spark. He hoped Kepler couldn’t feel it happening beneath his fingertips.

“Um,” said Jacobi. “Sir…”

Kepler’s eyes snapped to Jacobi’s. “Does this hurt?” he asked lowly, pressing his fingers into Jacobi’s ribs. Jacobi winced and started to pull away, but then he saw the challenge on Kepler’s face and forced himself still, forced himself to challenge back. 

“No,” he said. 

“Huh,” said Kepler, because he didn’t believe him. His fingers skipped over to another bruise and pressed, eyebrows flicking up in another question.

Jacobi swallowed. “No.” 

They moved higher, to a spot on Jacobi’s collarbone. Jacobi’s difficulty breathing had nothing to do with his cracked ribs.

“No,” he rasped. 

The only light came from the maglite, which was buried in someone’s sleeping bag; filtered through the cloth, it was an eerie blue. Two fingers pressed against Jacobi’s jugular. 

“Here?” asked Kepler. 

Jacobi shook his head, and something flashed in Kepler’s eyes, and the hand moved to cup Jacobi’s jaw, a thumb dragging over Jacobi’s lips. Jacobi’s eyes drifted shut, a jagged breath leaving his mouth—

And then it happened, what Jacobi had been waiting for, counting on. Kepler laughed, patted Jacobi’s cheek, and shoved him away. When, red-faced, Jacobi forced himself into a dignified position on his sleeping bag, Kepler was already laying on his back with his arms crossed behind his head, chuckling to himself, like it was all just great _fun._

Jacobi thought he might throw up. He switched the light off, crawled inside his sleeping bag and turned on his side, even though it hurt, just so he wouldn’t have to look at Kepler, who was still _fucking laughing at him_. 

_Okay_ , Jacobi wanted to scream, _I get it, it’s so goddamn funny, laugh at poor Jacobi and his pathetic, fucked-up gay crush—_

“You got your ass kicked by _Bigfoot_ ,” Kepler snickered into the darkness. 

If he felt Jacobi’s kick, it didn’t do anything to shut him up.

Long story short? That’s why neither of them talk about Bigfoot, ever, ever again. 

**Author's Note:**

> title from Sim Sala Bim by Fleet Foxes, a song which can be found on my kepcobi playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/kaijuboogaloo/playlist/2pu8y4YwLOOs1dpqaNDr6e). (pro tip: listen in order!)
> 
> thank you for reading my dumb bigfoot adventure. hope u enjoyed! if u did, consider leaving a comment, they give my little heart joy and i love every single one.


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